


all shields of mighty men

by apologeticallybourgeois



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, Fake Marriage, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-10-23 13:11:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17684108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apologeticallybourgeois/pseuds/apologeticallybourgeois
Summary: “It was a ritual marriage,” Shane muttered, depressingly certain he’d said the same sentence at least 300 times in the past five months.(Unsolved meets Star Trek.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I choose not to put warnings on my fics, but feel free to ask in the comments about specific potentially triggering content that I may not have tagged. I'm a gardener type of writer, but I will say that this fic (as it stands now in my googledoc) has a rather extensive plot, so keep an eye on tag changes.

The first thing Lieutenant Shane Madej saw upon his unwilling re-entry into consciousness was the too-bright, too-familiar ceiling of USS Lexington’s sickbay. The second thing he saw, unfortunately, was Ryan Bergara’s incredibly unattractive sleeping face, mashed onto the bed next to his arm. _Well, shitballs._

Shane squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remain as still as possible. But Ryan’s god-knows-how-many-hours-deferred ragefit had possibly given him Betazoid-like telepathy, because all too soon Shane heard a rustle of clothing and the hiss that was Ryan working himself up to an explosive tantrum.

“You fucking _dick_. You moron, did you stuff hay into that huge noggin this morning? It sure as hell wasn’t a brain in there, because _someone with a fucking brain_ would run _away_ from an explosion, not _to_ it!” A finger jabbed painfully into his sternum.

“Ow,” Shane said, feebly.

“Fuck you and fuck your ‘ow’, asshole. If it wouldn’t feel like fighting a baby with an oversized head, I’d beat you up myself right now.”

Shane cracked open an eye. Ryan’s face was red and blotchy, like steam really had come out of his nostrils. “There could’ve been civilians trapped in there.”

For a second, Ryan looked like he was going to deliver a beatdown anyway. “It was a warehouse for bathroom fixtures, you goddamn idiot.”

“What have you got against plumbers?”

That earned him another round of yelling while Nurse Mares worked around them and studiously ignored Shane’s silent pleas for help. Ryan finally stomped off after a good half-hour and one last, blistering “and you stay there, moron!”, which got them a quickly stifled laugh from Ensign Bacaltos in the next bed. She didn’t even have the grace to look ashamed that _she_ was there thanks to the same incident. Hell, he’d actually been running after her, because Bacaltos had been armed with the courage of her convictions and not much else.

Dr. Yang finally swanned in after the sickbay doors closed behind Ryan, neatly having avoided dealing with displays of feelings. He didn’t look impressed with them carrying on, but Shane didn’t take it personally — he’d have to transform into a Madej-sized cask of Romulan ale for Eugene Yang to be anywhere close to being impressed.

“I’m pretty sure only my next of kin have extended visitation rights,” Shane said, trying to massage away an incipient headache.

“Bergara _is_ your next of kin,” Yang said, completely without sympathy. His elaborately-painted nails clacked against the tricorder as he scanned Shane. “Try to keep your domestics out of my sickbay.”

“It was a ritual marriage,” Shane muttered, depressingly certain he’d said the same sentence at least 300 times in the past five months.

“Still counts in the eyes of the law. Take it up with Ghouligans, I’m sure they’d love to tell Starfleet how you and Bergara lied to them.”

“Ah, fuck,” Shane said, closing his eyes and wishing for death. “You are, without a doubt, the worst doctor on this ship.”

Yang laughed, because he truly was the worst. “You’re welcome to take over if you have the Starfleet Medical-certified balls for it, Madej. Now shut the fuck up and let me examine you.”

“Yessir.”

***

Ryan was _technically_ Shane’s superior officer, which made their marriage and continued assignment to the same away team a little dicey. But their marriage got the Federation access to the Ghouligans’ very productive mines, and Starfleet allowed them an out after a rote interview that only got a little shouty. Joralman got bumped up as the chief cat herder, Ryan and Shane signed what basically amounted to a post-nup contract agreeing not to make an example out of their foolishness, and all was well with the universe until the next crisis.

Shane had argued hard for the status quo to remain, to no small amount of incredulity from even himself. But he liked being platonically fake-married to that weird-ass anxious conspiracy theorist, and he was man enough to admit that he’d be a little sad when they’ll finally divorce. Wonder of wonders, Ryan never actually made fun of him over that little factoid even though he’d upbraided Shane over less; e.g. Shane’s head, his dedication to logic and the scientific method, his height, his Midwestern origins, his entire existence and being.

Shane joined Starfleet because he wanted something more than Schaumburg, and outer space seemed like a pretty good bet. Ryan joined Starfleet because it was what one did when one was a sixth-gen spacer and raised to be ambitious. All that space radiation, Shane thought, probably also did a number on Ryan’s brain, because religious faith was one thing but he’d never actually met anyone else in Starfleet who genuinely believed in ghosts and demons. It was all kinds of amazing, the bonds very different people can forge under a constant threat of death by vacuum slash hostile empires slash a previously unknown all-powerful entity who wanted to play with screaming meatbags.

The marriage, hilariously fucked up as the circumstances were, felt like the period at the end of a sentence that had begun with Captain Nygaard declaring them work wives and each other’s problem forthwith — after an argument over a ‘haunted’ camp on Xuange V that escalated into a fractious panel debate in the mess hall. They probably deserved each other, when it came down it.

***

There was a mug of tea, still steaming, waiting for him by his bed when he was finally discharged from the sickbay. Ryan was conspicuously absent from their quarters. Shane cradled the mug between his hands and tried not to smile like a loon, and was probably failing, because like every other time it meant that the idiot had forgiven him.

“That’s that,” he announced to air and dust motes, and went off to find his husband.


	2. Chapter 2

“Don’t say it,” Shane warned.

“Look, this is all I’m putting on the table: there’s evidence backing up the theory that this was the work of the Triton Armada.” Ryan made a sweeping motion to, presumably, encompass the entirety of the station around them. “Sector 31 was known to be active in this region. They have access to starships, personnel, and weaponry. And they weren’t shy about using them.”

“Inference isn’t evidence, Bergara. For the sake of argument, assuming the Triton Armada is even _real_ , why would Sector 31 attack a science station full of scientists watching a planet evolve?” 

“There were rumours that the Odranians were researching a doomsday weapon—”

Shane rolled his eyes.

“—I saw that, you dick. Anyway, if the attack was meant to scare the Odranians into abandoning weapons development, it worked. They didn’t even continue their space exploration program until they petitioned to join the Federation.”

Joralman’s boots clanged on the metal floor, the sound echoing down the corridor as she swung down from her perch to rejoin them. “There’s no evidence of an attack,” she said mildly, dusting off her uniform. “To be fair, there’s no evidence of _anything_. Marchbank?”

“Not even a bolt out of place, ma’am,” Marchbank’s disembodied voice said, from the last of the escape chutes. “All the emergency pods are intact and accounted for.”

Ryan made a frustrated sound, like a dying engine heaving one last breath.

“I’m surprised you didn’t posit a zombie apocalypse scenario,” Shane said, because Ryan’s cat-like pissiness was a hit of sweet, sweet nectar when he was in the right mood.

“Do you really think I’m an idiot?” Ryan scoffed, one hundred percent fulfilling Shane’s need to metaphorically tweak his nose. “There’s no sign of blood, and zombies wouldn’t clean up after themselves.”

“What a shame, I’d love to see you defend the existence of zombies.”

Ryan flipped him off.

“Gentlemen,” Joralman said, ever so slightly stressing the first two syllables, “we’re on the clock here, so behave. Let’s move up to the next section.”

There was something unnerving about rummaging through empty spaces where people used to live, Shane thought. Even Celestino, who barely sweated that one time they were surprised by a Klingon raiding party, looked perturbed as a methodical search of the living quarters confirmed that every room had been picked clean. It was as if the entire Odranian expedition decided to do a massive scrub-down before packing up and disappearing into legend.

“The Odranian report was right: this place wasn’t scavenged,” Ryan said. His gaze rested thoughtfully on the desk in the expedition leader’s room. “But every single piece of personal belongings are gone. The data in the station computers are thoroughly wiped. One of the theories I read speculated they were fleeing an emergency, but they wouldn’t have taken the time to remove every trace of themselves if that was the case.”

“No, they wouldn’t,” Joralman agreed. “Not without at least sending an SOS back to á-Odra.”

“Unless Dr. Xavier was the only surviving member,” Marchbank suggested doubtfully. “He didn’t speak the Odranian language.”

Joralman shook her head. “They were very accommodating of him — he wouldn’t have needed to know Odranian.”

She touched a panel set into a slight recess in the wall. It lit up around her hand and gave a hopeful trill, revealing a set of touchscreen keys that appeared first in Odranian, before quickly switching to Standard.

“There’s bending over backwards, and then there’s translating the computing system of an entire space station for one person,” Shane said, raising his eyebrows.

“They were kind of really into him, though,” Ryan said. “He was the first alien scientist to work with the Odranians, and as far as I can tell he was as invested in the research into Rho Felis Prime as everyone else on the team. The Odranian government still sends his family in Goa a condolence letter on the anniversary of the station launch every year.”

Shane whistled. “It’s been, what, almost forty years? Even United Earth stops after twenty, max, and we’re the most sentimental race in the Federation.”

Joralman gave a low, considered _hmm_. “Your professional opinion, Bergara? On the physical safety of the station, not the missing expedition.” 

“Come on, I got it the first time,” Ryan said, grumpily. “If there’s a booby-trap on this station, I haven’t found it. I’ll need Chang with me to do a second check on the computers, but for now it’s safe as far as an abandoned space station goes.”

“I still remember what happened with the Ghouligans, Bergara, so don’t even start.” She flipped open her communicator. “Joralman to Lexington.”

“ _Go ahead, Lieutenant._ ”

“Initial survey of Light of the Sky completed. Station is intact and secure, no hostiles or traps detected. I recommend sending in repair teams.” 

“ _Understood. Please stand by to receive Commander Fulmer on the station bridge._ ”

“Copy that, Lexington. Joralman out.”

***

The Light of the Sky was a small space station built for planetary observation, with a central habitat shaped like a spinning top and a single docking berth connected to its equator. Its 22-member crew had been studying the evolution of complex life on Rho Felis Prime, around which the station orbited. Dr. Isaias Xavier was a geophysicist with a list of awards and commendations as long as Shane’s arm; no wonder the Odranians were thrilled to have him.

Because Shane was, in fact, not entirely useless as a spouse, he’d spent a significant chunk of time the previous night listening to Ryan rambling on about the unsolved mystery of the missing Light of the Sky crew. Ryan had shown him a still he vaguely remembered from long-ago documentaries: Xavier and Nuri é-Otami, the expedition leader, standing before a field of stars and smiling. Or at least Xavier was smiling — it was harder to translate the Odranian’s expression into standard human emotions, but Shane got a distinct impression of someone who was living hir best life. 

He nudged Ryan, leaning down to gently bump shoulders. “Hey, you know anything about the Odranians? Aside from wild conspiracy theories.”

“Why don’t you go throw yourself out of an airlock, how ‘bout that?” Ryan looked pleased by the question, though. “They evolved from water-based mammals — over 80 percent of their planet’s surface is covered with water. The Odranians developed warp technology more than two centuries ago, but they weren’t considered very adventurous, perhaps because it took a while for them to figure out how to keep their spacecrafts comfortably humid.”

Shane looked up at the graceful arches of the station ceilings, and the reflective lights that made them look taller, more spacious. The Odranians clearly sunk a lot of time and care into making the station _feel_ liveable, with soft colours and rounded edges. There was something to be said, he thought, about a people who built aesthetics into function as a matter of course, as if there was never any question that beauty was as important as any other consideration. Even for something as instrumental as scientific equipment.

“The Alkorians split off from the Odranians after a civil war and set off for space. My grandma — the one who, uh, liberated resources from the Neutral Zone, quote unquote — used to warn us about them. She said they were nasty sons of the devil’s guns, and that if we had a choice between facing an Alkorian patrol or a black hole, we should just take our chances with gravity.”

Shane shrugged. “Ehhh. They can’t be that bad if they’re willing to sign peace treaties with the Odranians. And they don’t like the Romulans any better than the rest of us.”

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Shane conceded. “Any idea why the Odranians named this station Light of the Sky?”

They had fallen behind the rest of the team while they talked, and Shane had a sudden, amusing thought of them as characters in a Regency novel, taking a turn about the room. _Recycled air, that’s romantic_. There was no denying the spectacular view from the observation windows, though, of an evolving planet and its lush, teeming life, about to give birth to its first biped. He’d seen the scans; Rho Felis Prime was where Earth was in its early Permian period, and he wondered if it would end with a mass extinction of insects too, taking with it the massive dragonfly-like creatures with stained glass wings flitting about the planet’s single continent.

“The name was Dr. Xavier’s idea, actually. He liked puns and wordplay. According to his former colleagues he was really annoying about it, too,” Ryan said, glancing sidelong at Shane. “‘Nuri’ sounded like the Arabic word for light, and the station would’ve looked like a star in the sky from the planet’s surface. Hence, Light of the Sky.”

Shane laughed. “A man after my own heart.”

***

“All right, kids, let’s make sure this station is ship-shape for the treaty signing,” Commander Fulmer said, rubbing his hands like a comic-book villain. There was a manic gleam in his eyes, and he moved around the station bridge in a way that suggested he was bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I want every centimetre of this station checked, fixed, and re-checked. If it’s not functioning at full capacity, we don’t stop working until it is.”

The engineering team moved closer together, ever so slightly, into a defensive huddle.

Ryan was already deep into paranoid security talk with Ensign Chang, gesturing at the computers, doorways, and possibly imaginary chutes shooting people into vacuum. Shane knew Ryan was going to be obsessing about every single possible emergency scenario until they waved goodbye to the delegates, even with Starfleet sending a special security detail to take over the actual job of making sure no one got assassinated or worse.

“It’s going to be a long week,” Shane muttered to himself. Joralman and the rest of their team were gearing up for their return to the Lexington, but it would be a while yet before they could escape Fulmer’s clutches, so Shane tucked himself somewhere less conspicuous to wait.

There wasn’t much more information on the crew of the Light of the Sky than what Ryan had already covered. Shane flicked through record after record in Starfleet’s database on his PADD, skimming for anything he might have missed. There were a fair few photographs of Isaias Xavier’s smiling face, gaining crow’s feet around his dark eyes and flecks of grey in his hair as they progressed from a stiffly-posed graduation photo to the last known image, a holophotograph of him and Nuri waving at an unidentified audience. It wasn’t an official photograph; they were half out of spacesuits and shiny with sweat, laughing over something.

Xavier looked like a guy Shane wouldn’t mind having a coffee with, not someone who would blithely go along with a doomsday weapons program. For that matter, neither did Nuri é-Otami, who spent a semester at the Vulcan Science Academy as a xenobiologist in residence. Shane winced, thinking of Old Vulcan’s arid deserts — it must have been literal hell.

A faint whine and the sparkle of the transporters signalled the arrival of more of the Lexington crew, yeomen spilling out with PADDs and an air of tragic determination. Captain Nygaard must have made the decision to beam them to the bridge to be briefed by Fulmer, instead of straight to the living quarters to prep for the delegates.

Ryan’s voice went an octave higher, cutting through the hubbub. Shane considered the options available to him, caught Commander Fulmer’s eye, and made the strategic decision to cruelly abandon Ryan to his fate.

“See you on the ship, buddy,” Shane said.

“Traitor!” Ryan called out, but he didn’t seem to mind that much, and Ryan’s smile was Shane’s last glimpse of him before the transporter whisked him away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was looking through my notes as I was writing this chapter, and at some point I'd written FUCK HOW DO YOU PLOT. orz Strap in, folks, we have an actual story that allows me to avoid writing Shane and Ryan boning for as long as humanly possible! :D I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
> 
> Ryan as a security specialist is 100% based on the JFK episode.


	3. Chapter 3

Long, painful hours of training under Starfleet Academy’s most hardass instructors instilled in Shane the ability to be instantly awake and functional at a moment’s notice, but it didn’t mean he was obliged to be _happy_ about it.

“Hear me out,” Ryan said, looking far too alert and far too close to Shane’s face. He was, in fact, leaning over Shane like a fucking sleep demon perched on the edge of the bed, come to torment him for his sins.

Shane blinked the cobwebs out of his eyes and rolled to his side, squinting at the clock. _0437 hours, what the fuck_.

“This is an act of aggression,” he said.

“You’ve had like five hours of sleep and you’re not due for your shift until 0800 hours,” Ryan informed him. “If you didn’t want to be my ‘grossly-needed check and balance’, you shouldn’t have written it into your vows. And yeah, I’m playing the marriage card, deal with it.”

Shane groaned. “Have I not been sufficiently doting over your theories — which, FYI, are completely detached from reality? Commander Vergano is going to retroactively fail us.”

“This isn’t a theory so much as a proposed plan of action to test a hypothesis.” Ryan looked — hell, he looked tired and awful but also completely serious. Shane might’ve been a sucker but at least he knew his own faultlines well, and he knew he was weak against _that_ look on Ryan’s face.

“I’m listening,” Shane said, committing his peace of mind to the deep. “This better be good.”

“Okay, here’s my working hypothesis: there has to be _some_ kind of clue left behind on Light of the Sky,” Ryan said. “Twenty-two people don’t just disappear without a trace. Even the Roanoke colony left a fucking carving on a tree.”

“The Odranians _and_ Starfleet sent forensics teams to the station, Ryan.”

“Yeah, but that was forty years ago, give or take. Technology’s improved by leaps and bounds since then. We can get a specialised medical scanner in, look for traces of specific biological material.” Ryan’s fingers drummed against his thighs. “Here’s what I’m thinking: let’s assume there was a hostile force that captured the station. They couldn’t have killed everyone all over the place. Too messy, too much clean-up. So they likely gathered everyone in one place, and then — boom. Or maybe the scientists were taken hostage. My point being: there’s only one place big enough to contain everyone, and that’s the docking bay. We start there.”

Shane heaved a sigh. “If I say yes, okay, we’ll risk an ass-kicking from Dr. Yang for borrowing a medical scanner, will you let me go back to sleep?” 

“Oh yeah, I’ll ask KP for the scanner,” Ryan said, serenely — too serenely for it not to be fait accompli, and the scanner was probably already sitting in Ryan’s locker as they spoke.

There was a 50-50 chance that Dr. Peterman would crumble and give them up under a stern look from Yang. Still better than the alternative, though, which was to suffer through Ryan’s endless sulk _and_ Yang dragging them from one metaphorical end of hell to the other. 

Apparently taking Shane’s mournful groan as assent, Ryan tossed his PADD onto Shane’s bedside table and said, brightly, “Great! Now shove over, I want to get some shut-eye before our shift.”

Shane flicked his ear. “Rude. What’s wrong with _your_ bed?”

“It’s full of my crap, there’s no way a human being can fit in there.”

Craning his neck to look over Ryan’s shoulder provided visual evidence that the other bed was, indeed, full of PADDs and assorted print-outs. But, Shane thought, no messier than Ryan’s usual deal.

“You got spooked by your own research, didn’t you?” Shane said flatly. “What the _hell_ , Bergara.”

Ryan’s blush went all the way to his hairline. “Are you going to let me sleep or what?”

“This romance sucks and I want a divorce,” Shane complained. His body reached the inevitable conclusion before his conscious mind had resigned itself to it, though, and was already moving to give Ryan room on his narrow bed.

“Whatever, I want custody of our cacti children,” said Ryan, already burrowing under the regulation blanket. His toes tickled Shane’s calves.

“ _All_ of them? How dare you, I’m Emma’s favourite.” 

Shane’s bed felt overly warm with another body in it, but it was probably the perfect temperature for Ryan, who always seemed to be cold despite his upbringing — ie., literally one patched-up hull away from the freezing vacuum of space. He sighed again just for effect and settled back down, giving up his half of the blanket. It wasn’t as if he was going to need it.

“Thanks,” Ryan mumbled, half-way to dreamland. At least he smelled nice, that was probably a plus. “And you can have Emma, I never liked her anyway.”

“Go the fuck to sleep, idiot,” Shane said, feeling affection expand in his chest like a cat stretching out in a spot of sunlight.

***

“When I agreed to this hare-brained scheme, Ryan, I didn’t think we were going to start looking an hour before the delegates get here.”

Ryan didn’t even have the grace to take his eyes off the screen, that asshole. “We’d draw too much attention to ourselves if we’re here when we’re not supposed to be here.”

“Yes, because two Starfleet officers who are _distinctly_ not in blue flashing around a medical scanner is totally discreet.” 

“Shh! Keep your voice down.”

Shane manfully kept his eyes from rolling to the ceiling by pretending to be doing the important, essential work of waiting around in a docking bay for a bunch of diplomats. There were long stretches of life in Starfleet that could be summed up with an old military saying: hurry up and wait. The enlisted crew got the worst of it, but officers weren’t spared either — a Constitution-class ship like the Lexington had a lot of moving parts to juggle, both machine and organic, and that’s before factoring in external elements. Like dead space. Or cultures with extremely broad interpretations of punctuality.

Joralman and Celestino were temporarily re-assigned to the escort team for the Alkorians, and he and Ryan to the station crew for the duration of the treaty signing. Which left Marchbank twiddling his thumbs on the ship, poor bastard, except Lt. Ilnyckyj had then grabbed him to help clear the backlog of documentation from the mess on Canopus IV that nearly left Shane and Bacaltos with holes in their heads.

Speak of the devil and he doth appear: Ilnyckyj himself, striding into the docking bay with a dissatisfied line between his brows. And, as always, drawing glances from the greenhorns who weren’t yet used to the few remaining Vulcans in Starfleet. Not that Ilnyckyj himself ever seemed to care about being seen as a paragon of Vulcan virtue — and probably couldn’t, at that. He never spoke about his family, but he had a Human name, and more than occasionally even deigned to be emotionally expressive. Mostly about his cat, but still, a feeling was a feeling.

“I assume there is a reason why Lt. Bergara currently has an expensive and delicate piece of medical equipment in his hands,” Ilnyckyj said, shooting Ryan a look that was both censorious and, at the same time, inappropriately anticipatory. “Dr. Peterman compelled me to relay a warning that Dr. Yang has noticed its lack in his sickbay, and will soon correctly surmise who has taken it.”

Shane winced. “Thanks, pal.”

Whatever reply Ilnyckyj was going to give was cut off by the whine of transporter beams; Ryan was out of time, because it looked like the show was starting ahead of schedule. Shane heard him curse under his breath, and when he glanced back Ryan was already taking up his assigned position, a resigned look on his face.

Captain Nygaard and Commander Fulmer arrived first with half the Lexington’s senior officers, Ilnyckyj walking up to join them. Next were two Human women in Starfleet red — Commander Khare and Lt.-Commander Shalhoub, Shane presumed — whom the Captain greeted rather stiffly, though there was a carefully pleasant smile on her face.

The smile transformed into something more genuine when the Odranians arrived, followed swiftly by the Alkorians, with their assigned escorts at their heels. Shane tuned out of Captain Nygaard’s introductions quickly, allowing her dulcet tones to wash over him unheard. He had seen photos of the scientists who disappeared, of course, but he felt vaguely unprepared to meet actual, real Odranians in the flesh. Their sleek, dark skin shone under the lights of the station and the pump of humidity that settled on everyone like a damp veil; and its mottled patterns, in hues of bioluminescent blues and greens, were as distinctive an individual trait as any facial feature.

“The honour is ours, Captain. My name is Hangi é-Otami,” said one the Odranians — the one with a wash of stippled greens across hir nose. Hir voice was oddly resonant, carrying clearly across the docking bay. “This is my colleague, Nairna é-Osan. Thank you for restoring Light of the Sky.”

Shane felt more than heard Ryan twitch behind him, and whispered, just in case, “No relation. The Odranians don’t have family names, just— place-names? The translation wasn’t very clear.”

“Someone’s an expert,” Ryan murmured back.

“Someone has to be, in actual facts. Shut up before you get us caught.”

Perhaps fortunately for them — Commander Fulmer, dad instincts on full alert, was turning his head in their direction — it was the Alkorians’ turn to make nice. Only four generations separated the Alkorians from the Odranians, but there were already distinct physical differences. The Alkorians were leaner, as if pared down to only the bare necessities, with more pronounced browbones and jawlines. They also appeared to have broken with Odranian cultural traditions almost entirely: monochrome geometric patterns instead of soft colours, and rank insignias tattooed in fluorescent red over their left eyes.

“I am Aris se-Ehas,” said one of them. Ze was easily the oldest of the lot, hir tawny eyes beginning to cloud with age, but ze carried himself like a soldier — a proud one, at that. “I am pleased to introduce my subordinate, Mahae ta-Ehas. This is only one of a series of treaties between our people and the planet-dwellers, Captain, let’s not stand on ceremony.”

Never let it be said that Captain Nygaard didn’t know how to work an awkward silence, because the Odranians barely had time to look affronted before she was already taking Aris se-Ehas’s hand and saying, “We may be a footnote in history, Ship-Captain, but nevertheless it _is_ history we’re making here together.”

Interesting, Shane thought, that Mahae ta-Ehas seemed as shocked and uncomfortable as the Odranians. He was a long way away from being able to decipher their facial expressions easily, but there was no mistaking the sharp glance ta-Ehas gave hir superior and the way hir eyes then darted towards the Odranians, trying to gauge their reaction.

Naturally, that was when Ryan said, a little too loudly, “I found something.”

“Oh my fucking god, Ryan,” Shane hissed, feeling his entire career drain out from his future. “Is this even— just. Hold. It. In.”

“Uh, Shane—”

“Not now, Bergara.”

“I’m going to decorate my sickbay with your entrails,” Dr. Yang growled, right in his ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got horribly ill and it was terrible, and this chapter was a slog to write. Onwards!


	4. Chapter 4

“I used to wonder how the two of you got married, even taking into consideration your collective idiocy,” Dr. Yang said, arms folded. Behind him, Kate Peterman was doing her level best to fade into the walls. “I assumed it was because Madej here was too chicken to pop the question and wanted an excuse to put a ring on it—”

“Hey,” Shane said.

“—but now that I know Bergara can use his mouth like a cudgel on a charm offensive, emphasis on offensive, everything becomes so much clearer.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Ryan said.

“Shut the fuck up,” Dr. Yang said, pointing a finger at him. “Fortunately for you two dicks, you’ve successfully roused my curiousity. We’re taking a look at what the medical scanner tells us, and then I decide whether to turn you in to Captain Nygaard for a spanking.”

Shane and Ryan looked at each other. Shane raised his eyebrows. 

“We’ll take it,” said Ryan.

Dr. Yang was a very attractive human equivalent of an angry sehlat with a severe case of perfectionism, but he knew his stuff. It would’ve probably taken Ryan far more time than optimum to figure out the scanner; Dr. Yang had it connected to the Lexington’s computers and running an analysis before he was even finished silently judging Shane’s haircut.

“It’s human blood,” he said. “It’s too degraded for DNA analysis — someone tried to erase it, but enough traces remained to at least tell us what it is.”

Ryan’s eyes rounded. “Can you tell us if, uh, the blood traces had a pattern? Like a splatter, or something.” 

“Or something,” Dr. Yang said grimly. The screen changed to display a faint, but definite shape that couldn’t have come from an accident, unless accidents came with a paintbrush. “It looks like—” He paused. “I don’t know what that is, actually.”

Shane squinted. “Two candy canes stuck together?”

Ryan made a face like a disgusted cat. “A water fountain?” 

“Horns?” Peterman suggested, leaning over Yang’s shoulder.

It did look a little like horns, in the abstract: a straight vertical line splitting into two at the top and curving downwards into half-circles. Whoever did it wasn’t messing around — the defined lines suggested no hesitation, as if its maker knew exactly what they wanted to say, and what they wanted to say was this.

“Unless your unknown artist was an Aries who was really into astrology written in human blood, you’re out of luck,” Dr. Yang said, though he did sound at least slightly sympathetic.

Ryan groaned. “A mystery in a mystery in a mystery.”

“A mystery sandwich,” Shane agreed. “Could do with some mustard of enlightenment. Or the hot sauce of please just tell us what’s going on.”

Dr. Yang drummed his nails — marbled azure and white, and tipped in gold — and, as if abruptly coming to a decision, handed them a microtape. “I have to report our findings, but I can delay it until tomorrow morning and the captain won’t review my logs until the evening. You have just over 24 hours before she hauls your asses in, don’t waste it. And make no mistake: I _will_ put the thumbscrews on you myself.”

“Doc, I’ve had instructors less of a sadist than you,” Shane mock-grumbled, but readily took the microtape. “Why are you even here? You’ll make a killing as an interrogator for the Klingons.”

Ryan sighed. “What he means is: thanks, for what it’s worth.”

Something cold flickered in Dr. Yang’s eyes, and Shane felt himself automatically taking a step back towards the door. “Half my graduating class died with Vulcan,” he said, with the clear, precise enunciation of someone about to completely blow his top. “What’s left of us may not be Starfleet’s best and brightest, but we’re still Starfleet, and that’s the only reason why I’m giving you any goddamn time at all. Now get the fuck out.”

***

The rest of their morning shift passed without incident, but there wasn’t a whole lot of time to brood over The Clue, as Shane had taken to calling it in his head. Captain Nygaard, perhaps having anticipated that _some_ one was going to spoil all that speechwriter-approved, elegantly-expressed goodwill, arranged for an afternoon tea reception in the ship’s observation deck.

“What’s an afternoon tea?” Ryan said, looking bewildered as he struggled into his dress uniform. 

“I don’t know, but I suspect I know what the captain’s been watching in her downtime,” Shane said, futilely trying to wrench his collar into a slightly less itchy arrangement.

Ryan slapped Shane’s hands away. The dress jacket outlined the breadth of Ryan’s shoulders and the pleasing muscularity of his arms very nicely, but did apparently nothing to improve his irritability. “Oh my fucking god, stop that,” he said. “You’re going to ruin your uniform.”

“Whatever, that’s what the replicators are for,” Shane argued, but heroically left his collar alone. “C’mon, if you’re done prettying yourself up, we have an afternoon tea to be bored in.”

Afternoon tea turned out to be sandwiches cut into exquisitely-garnished fingers, sweet pastries glistening with sugar-glazed berries, and — because it was Chief Petty Officer Habersberger in charge of the food — fried faux-chicken drummettes rolled in redspice salt. Also, actual lapsang souchong tea, which both the Odranians and the Alkorians drank with enthusiastic enjoyment.

“Many of our traditional foods are smoked or fermented,” said Hangi é-Otami to Ilnyckyj, who seemed genuinely fascinated to be listening to Odranian Food History 101. Shane drifted closer, shamelessly eavesdropping. “I would like to take some of this tea home, if I may. My partner is a chef and has quite a collection of teas.”

“Of course. If you will indulge my curiousity: I was given the impression that Odranian tastes tend to be… parochial,” Ilnyckyj said, with all the delicacy of an axe.

Hangi gave a rueful, melodious laugh. “It’s not an unearned reputation. The war with the Alkorians aside, we’re a cautious people, and given to reading signs of impending storms in any given setback. Give us a slap, and we run to our home waters.”

“It was a difficult decision, then, to return here.”

“My government was surprised, to put it mildly, when the Alkorians chose the Light of the Sky as one of the treaty-signing sites,” Hangi said. “I supported it, however — if nothing else, to excise the shame of our greatest failure, rooted in our cowardice as a people. An-Nuri é-Otami was the greatest scientist of hir generation. Whatever befell hir, ze would have been devastated to see us retreat from the stars.”

Ilnyckyj frowned. “Pardon me, _An_ -Nuri?”

“An honorific to indicate a deceased person,” Hangi explained. Ze paused, then added, “If you will permit me to indulge _my_ curiousity, Lieutenant: I was told that many Vulcans resigned their Starfleet commissions so they could help rebuild.”

Ilnyckyj lifted his shoulders in a shrug that would, among more emotional people, be described as insouciant. “And I did not? Yes, and for reasons not dissimilar to your sentiments. I do not believe that Vulcan interests are best served by retreating into ourselves; to withdraw from the diplomatic and scientific endeavours of the Federation is an act of political self-sabotage. We may be diminished in numbers, but we are still a founding member of an alliance built in part on our leadership and our talents. Our influence should not be left to wane so easily.”

Unfortunately, that was when Ilnyckyj’s wandering gaze snagged on him, and Shane had to pretend he was only there to grab another faux-chicken drummette. At least the reception was going swimmingly, not one potential glove-slapping in sight. Nairna é-Osan, who until then barely even looked at the Alkorians in the face, even thawed enough to be having a leisurely chat with Mahae ta-Ehas.

Commander Fulmer and his wife Ariel, as always, were the ones working the crowd while Captain Nygaard drew every eye to her, blithely charming at the center of attention. The Odranian and Alkorian representatives each brought their own entourage, and glad-handing them was an inescapable duty of diplomatic missions. Shane could see Ryan determinedly making conversation with Aris se-Ehas, and made a note in his head to bring Ryan a drink.

The Lexington kids were conspicuously absent from the reception, though Shane didn’t think anyone who wasn’t familiar with Starfleet would notice the lack. Genial as the occasion may be, there were still hitherto warring factions in attendance. No one was taking chances.

Shane gave a mental snort. Captain Kirk was right about Starfleet having to return to its mandate of exploration instead of playing fascist spies across the universe, but making a grandstanding speech about it was one thing — making it a reality was another. The Narada cut a swath through entire generations of Starfleet officers, and Khan Noonien Singh further decimated their leadership ranks. It didn’t leave the fleet with many options. Starfleet begged and bribed officers who might otherwise resign their commission into staying, anyone who was halfway decent and could be trusted with decision-making under fire. 

Some, like the Captain, were fast-tracked for promotions. Others, like Commander Fulmer, were appeased with new, ‘family-friendly’ policies. Inasmuch as serving on starships assigned to deep space missions, with all its inherent risks, could ever be family-friendly. It was Starfleet’s dirty secret, spoken in anguished conversations behind closed doors: having families accompanying officers meant accepting civilian casualties as a trade-off for retaining talent.

Shane plucked a flute of Altair water off a tray carried by a passing yeoman and made his way towards Ryan, who was standing with se-Ehas by the windows overlooking Light of the Sky and Rho Felis Prime. Bracketing the station were the Alkorian and Odranian ships; an enormous parent-ship bristling with weaponry and child-ships, and a sleek diplomatic vessel that looked to be of Coridan make.

“I was born into war, Lieutenant, and lived most of my life as a soldier,” se-Ehas was saying as Shane approached. Ryan had on the carefully neutral expression he wore when forced to interact with someone he instinctively disliked, and with no way to be openly rude to them. “Of course I’m skeptical of peace. _Reconciliation_. Our genes and history connect us with the planet-dwellers, but we are nothing like them.”

Shane swapped out the teacup in Ryan’s hand with the glass flute. Se-Ehas’s amber eyes turned to him, cool and assessing. Ryan’s fingers tightened around the glass as he stepped closer to Shane, putting an arm around Shane and placing himself slightly forward. 

“Any plans to join the Federation?” Ryan said. He didn’t introduce Shane.

Curiouser and curiouser, Shane thought, and kept his mouth shut.

Se-Ehas harrumphed, a sonorous, impressively rolling sound. “The Odranians may need the protection of the Federation — they are, after all, a timorous people — but we do not. We build our own ships, do you know that? We are tied to our ships as children are tied to their families, and it is from them we take our names. Mahae and I, we were both born to a-Ehas. I was part of the first generation to be born on our parent-ships.”

Older than ze looked, then. Shane said, because he couldn’t help himself, “The Odranians did build the Light of the Sky all on their own.”

“I will admit, none of us expected it of them,” se-Ehas said, grudgingly. “Neither did we think it was truly a scientific outpost. On that, too, we were wrong.” 

Ze turned, looking out the window to the station. “It was a very different world then. You’ve never seen the Odranians fire on a parent-ship, but it was my first memory. I became a war-child captain. Now I chase smugglers and pirates — and very soon, no one.”

***

“I found the blood traces in one of the wall alcoves,” Ryan said, later, in their cramped quarters on the Light of the Sky. “Whoever did it was trying to hide what they did. If it hadn’t been drawn right in a corner, it probably wouldn’t have survived the clean-up.”

They were sitting shoulder to shoulder on the floor, backs propped against one of the beds. Shane’s eyes felt swollen with exhaustion, and Ryan seemed ready to curl up into a roly poly right where he sat and just stay there till morning.

“Theories?” Shane asked, poking him in the side and ignoring the angry squeal. “I know you have at least a baker’s dozen, I can feel it.”

“I have one that I’m working on,” Ryan said, slowly. “I don’t know if I’m right. Hell, what if I’ve been wrong all along? What if I missed something? I can’t— I can’t go around wrongly accusing people, that shit has consequences.”

Shane watched his face, the deep, familiar shadows under Ryan’s eyes and the downturned corners of his mouth. “That’s quite a change for you, Bergara. Usually you’d be shouting these things from the metaphorical rooftops.”

Ryan tilted his head back, looking at Shane sidelong. “I have a lot more to lose now, Madej. I’m kind of fond of your stupid mug. And also, the Lexington.”

Shane would genuinely, honestly love to blame what he did next on the moonlight, or alien microbes in the air, or brain parasites, _some_ thing. But there was no getting around the fact that he did it because he wanted to, and it felt like almost an out-of-body experience: watching himself bending down towards Ryan, closer and closer, until he was well past the point of plausible deniability.

“May I?” Shane asked. The palms of his hand felt damp where they rested on his thighs. “Kiss you, I mean. Please?”

Ryan swallowed, wide-eyed. His breath exhaled in rapid puffs against Shane’s skin. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “If— if I can kiss you back.”

Something raw and aching lodged itself in Shane’s chest, and he kissed Ryan with all the tenderness he’d been cloaking in jokes and jibes. Ryan sighed into the kiss, softly, turning towards Shane and sliding his hands around Shane’s wrists. Sitting like this, Ryan was the perfect height for kissing, and Shane leaned into it, feeling Ryan kiss back, the world around them softening into a wash of watercolours.

Ryan’s communicator chirped.

“ _No_ ,” Shane groaned, horrified, coming back down to reality with an unwelcome kick to his eardrums. “No, I refuse to allow this, this is absolute bullshit.”

“Shit, fuck.” Ryan untangled himself and dove for his communicator, flipping it open. “This is Lieutenant Bergara,” he said, managing to sound only a little breathless.

“Bergara, Madej — yes, I know you’re there,” said Captain Nygaard, her voice tight and furious. “Report to my ready room. Now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like explicit consent for kissing. :D
> 
> (So where do fandom people hang out these days, post-Tumblrcalypse?)

**Author's Note:**

> Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love. No, wait, that last part really doesn't scan well in modern English.


End file.
